people and what they intended by them, then measures them against the Book and the Sunnah. Sound reason always agrees with the Messenger (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) and never contradicts him, for the Balance accompanies the Book, and Allah sent down the Book in truth, and the Balance.

People’s intellects, however, may fall short of comprehending the details of what he brought. The Messenger therefore brings them what they were unable to discover and were perplexed about—not what their reason knows to be false. The messengers (may Allah’s blessings and peace be upon them) convey matters that bewilder reason, not matters that reason deems impossible. This is the path of guidance, the Sunnah, and knowledge. The path of misguidance, innovation, and ignorance is the reverse: to devise an innovation based on men’s opinions and interpretations, then subordinate what the Messenger brought to it, distorting his words and interpreting them to accord with the principles they have laid down.

In reality, you find that these people neither rely on what the Messenger brought nor receive guidance from him. Rather, they accept whatever agrees with their views and use it as supporting evidence, not as their foundation. Whatever contradicts them, they reinterpret, like those who distort words from their proper places, or refrain from determining its meaning, like those who know nothing of the Book beyond mere recitation.

These people may not know what the Messenger brought, whether through inability or negligence. Such knowledge requires two premises: that the Messenger said such-and-such, and that he intended such-and-such by it. As for the first, most of them have no doubt that he brought the Quran, although some extremists among the people of innovation doubt parts of it. As for the hadiths, however, most people of innovation are ignorant of them. They suppose that these were transmitted by individual narrators whom they consider capable of lying and making mistakes. Nor do they know of the multiplicity of